Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Cellphone and their uses in the US

From a recent report in The Wall Street Journal, it seems that text messaging has finally caught on in the U.S.:

Monday, October 22, 2007

iPhone's Greatest Downside

Apple iPhone's greatest upside is its fun user interface. Its greatest downside for some is its lack of an open development environment. Apple says they are going to fix this in the coming months.

The Orange iPhone

For Apple's iPhone, it is AT&T in the U.S., T-Mobile in Germany and Orange in France--going with national leaders in each geography!

iPhone Review

Best iPhone review I've seen this year is this creative video from David Pogue, New York Times' technology reviewer and author of many Apple books:


Sunday, October 21, 2007

Moving from Sidekick II to P1i


I'm moving from Danger's Sidekick II to Sony-Ericsson P1i. Here are some steps I took to make the move useful to my needs.
  1. Read reviews on P1i. Watched some YouTube reviews of P1i. Read P1i specifications and technical white papers. Compared with iPhone and P1i in Sony Style and Apple shops. (6 hours)
  2. Ordered P1i from Amazon. (1/2 hour)
  3. P1i arrived well and ready. (7 days)
  4. Transfered phone contacts' phone numbers from Sidekick II internal memory to SIM card. Each contact's phone number has to be transfered individually. Only phone numbers could be transfered. (25 minutes)
  5. Removed SIM card from Sidekick II and placed it into P1i. (1 minutes)
  6. Placed battery into P1i. (10 seconds)
  7. Started P1i. (1 minute)
  8. Made first call to a contact on P1i. (5 seconds)
  9. Browsed the P1i manual. (15 minutes)
  10. Connected P1i to home W-LAN (WiFi) system after a simple scan of all W-LAN's available within range. (30 seconds)
  11. Browsed the web. (1 minute)
  12. Configured and tested for my corporate e-mail at Sun Microsystems Inc. (4 minutes)
  13. Downloaded first batch of 75 e-mails from corporate e-mail account using the W-LAN. (7 minutes)
  14. Wrote and sent first e-mail reply. (3 minutes)
  15. Started Bluetooth (P1i carries 2.0 version) and synchronized, through Handsfree, the P1i mobile device with our Toyota Prius phone/navigation system. Transfered phone book. (2 minutes)
  16. Dialed a number from the Prius. (5 seconds)
  17. Received and responded to a call from the Prius. (2 seconds)

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Nokia has acquired world's largest digital map content provider, report Robert Anderson and Paul Taylor of Financial Times:


Nokia, the world's largest mobile telephone manufacturer, is to take a giant step into the fast-growing mobile content and services market by acquiring Navteq, the leading provider of digital map information, for $8.1bn (€5.7bn) in cash.

Nokia, which is trying both to diversify away from handsets and offer customers more reasons to buy its handsets, will pay $78 in cash for each Navteq share, a 34 per cent premium to the price a month ago when takeover speculation started to push the shares higher.

The deal is the biggest in Nokia's recent spending spree. In recent months, the Finnish handset maker has announced plans to acquire Loudeye, a digital music company, for $60m, Twango, a social networking community, for a reported $100m, and Enpocket, a mobile marketing company, for an undisclosed sum.

Analysts suggested the price was expensive, given that TomTom, the market leader in car navigation devices, recently agreed to pay €1.8bn for Tele Atlas, the number two in the digital map market.